French President Emmanuel Macron rebuked US President Donald Trump last month for putting the interests of US citizens above demonstrating moral values.

Three weeks later, Paris was set ablaze by thousands of working-class protesters who objected to Macron promoting an environmentally friendly fuel tax.

Macron is about half as popular in France as Trump is in the US. Macron has set himself up as the enemy of nationalist leaders across Europe, but they’re more popular than him.

The Trump administration on Tuesday called for European countries to ditch the leadership of the United Nations and the European Union and instead to join the US in putting the interests of their own citizens first.

As Macron backpedals on his high-minded fuel tax without appeasing the protesters, it looks as if Trump is having the last laugh.

But three weeks later protesters stormed the monument in central Paris in a massive, violent riot that saw it defaced with slogans calling for Macron’s resignation and leaving the statue of Marianne, the symbol of France’s revolution, with its face smashed in.

“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism,” Macron said on November 11. “Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. By saying our interests first, who cares about the others, we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it great and what is essential: its moral values.”

His remarks were widely seen as a slap in the face to Trump. But they fell on deaf ears, even among his countrymen.

France’s lower and middle classes in the intervening weeks launched a massive mobilization that saw 36,000 marching in colors in the street.

The French who felt unseen, who felt Macron had not put their interests first, donned high-visibility yellow vests to protest their president’s raising taxes on diesel fuel, a move designed to make the country’s economy more green.

While Macron may have sought to improve the lot of all French people by building a green economy that could attract morally sound investments from around the world, the tax increase immediately hurt the suburban and rural working class. In return, it provides only theoretical, roundabout path toward their long-term gain.

Macron’s high-minded rhetoric fell flat among these workers, and, after the destruction at the Arc de Triomphe, Macron made the first major reversal of his presidency and called off the tax increase, beaten by protests he initially dismissed.